


For Just a Moment

by angelicaschuyler



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Daddy Issues, Daddy Kink, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Graphic Description of Corpses, M/M, Older Man/Younger Man, QPQVerse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 05:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6503386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelicaschuyler/pseuds/angelicaschuyler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I never expected us to happen. I figured I was just an easy lay for you, and that was fine because I liked it. And, I don’t know, I guess when you grow up the way I did you stop thinking you deserve the best parts of someone. You learn how to work with just scraps. When I realized I actually meant something to you - that was kind of a turning point, you know? Sometimes it’s still hard to wrap my mind around.”</p>
<p>Or: Washington's campaign gets stuck in Florida during Hurricane Sarah. Alex opens up about his childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Just a Moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rillrill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rillrill/gifts).



> As always, thanks to [rillrill](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rillrill/pseuds/rillrill), who passed the idea for this story over to me. This is part of the [Quid Pro Quo](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5880157) verse. 
> 
>  

Two things happen in Miami.

First, there’s Governor George Clinton.

_“Here’s what I’m saying: It’s not a problem in itself that my opponent doesn’t have children of his own. The real question is why haven’t we heard anything from his step-children? What happened there?”_ A smug shrug. _“There was that rumor that made the rounds in D.C., you know. That Alexander Hamilton is his illegitimate son. I’m not even saying there’s meat to that, but the stuff the kid gets away with - well, it makes you wonder.”_

He says it to some fresh-faced MSNBC correspondent after a rally – almost offhand, almost casual, like a joke, but in such a way that anyone with half a brain would recognize it as shit-stirring. Alex has watched the clip on his iPhone too many times to count. He knows the rest of the staff is working diligently to shut it down fast. That doesn’t make it sting any less, though. Doesn’t make him feel any less detached from his own body – like he could start screaming and no one would turn to look.

Second, there’s Hurricane Sarah - she’s just a category 1, bordering on 2 - but there’s no telling when they’ll be able to fly out to Cleveland. So, great. They’re stuck in fucking Florida. Alex _hates_ Florida. It’s just infuriating - they're missing precious time in a key battleground state, and now they’re fielding calls from the press about this damned rumor that they thought had died nearly four years ago along with Thomas Jefferson’s attempt to ruin their lives.

They're in the car on the way back to their hotel, and Alex feels like he's sinking. A particularly harsh gust of wind hits them, sets him on edge. His phone is vibrating with fresh emails and Google alerts.

He opens one email up, and there’s already a fucking Buzzfeed News headline asking: _“If not Washington - who?”_ Alex doesn’t even scroll down, doesn’t want to know what they’ve managed to dig up on James Hamilton, doesn’t know why any of this even  _matters_. They don’t even  _pass_  for father and son.

The rain starts coming down - hard. The smell makes him queasy.

“What am I supposed to do here? Get on CNN and set the whole thing straight?” he asks George, nearly shouting over the storm. Looking out the window, he can barely see a foot in front of him. They need to get indoors, he thinks, distantly.

George has been quiet. Thinking, strategizing, absent and not at all that comforting presence he sort of needs him to be right now. His dark eyes flicker over to Alex.

“It’s getting late. I think we need to sleep on this,” he says. And he looks so tired. This campaign is slowly killing them both.  _Preparation for the presidency_ , Alex thinks, because it really only can go downhill from here.

“We can’t have anyone looking at us this closely,” Alex tries anyway, keeping his voice low so the driver can't hear. “They look for one thing, they find another - ”

“Alexander,” George says. “I said we’ll sleep on it. I know - I know privacy is important to you. I don’t want you to disclose more than you’re comfortable with.”

Alex shrugs a shoulder. “If it keeps us safe - keeps your  _campaign_  safe - it’s worth doing.”

Back in their hotel room, it only takes a few seconds before Alex is swiftly unbuckling his belt and shoving his pants down, fixing George with a heated stare when their eyes meet.

Hurricanes sound like trains. Not so much Hurricane Sarah – she sounds like nothing more than a bad thunderstorm compared to Isaac. Category 4, 113 dead. His mother’s little bungalow – nothing to brag about, but it was home – completely leveled. Everything they didn't bring along while evacuating, gone.

A palm branch slams against the floor-to-ceiling windows. George jumps a little, startled, but Alex just closes his eyes and laughs, visions of his mother – keeping a stiff upper lip as they sifted through the ruin of his childhood home, salvaging what they could – dancing on the backs of his eyelids.  _“In times like this, Alexander, we ask God to show us our new path. He always has a plan.”_ Alex stopped praying the day she died.

Alex presses himself against George, shrugging out of his dress shirt. “I just need you to - please? _Daddy."_

He doesn't even have to explain what he needs, when he gets like this. George knows. He grabs him roughly by the hips, spins him around, and then it’s 10, maybe 15, minutes bent over the hotel bathroom’s marble vanity. It’s not nearly as forceful and aggressive as he needs it to be – George is tired, he gets it – and Alex can’t make eye contact until thick fingers are in his hair and he’s being pulled up to face the mirror. Face bright and flushed, tear streaks on his cheeks, dark bags under his eyes. It's a wonder, he thinks bitterly, that someone like George wants anything to do with him.

“Are you OK?” George asks afterward, sitting on the edge of the tub and turning on the hot water. There’s complimentary chamomile lavender milk bath – of course there is. George pours it in. The water foams. “I know it’s been –”

“Yeah – no,” Alex says, rubbing an especially tender spot George sucked onto his neck. “I’m OK. Thank you.”

George kisses his forehead sweetly, snakes an arm around his waist and squeezes. Alex leans into it and rests his cheek against his collarbone, inhales his scent.

“You should get in and relax tonight,” George says, nodding at the bubbling tub and tracing circles over Alex’s shoulder blades. “I’m going to go down to the hotel gym.”

Alex sighs against his skin but otherwise tries to hide his disappointment. Forces a playfulness into his voice and asks, “You don’t want to join me?”

“I’ll be quick – 30 minutes. Just wait for me.”

Alex sinks into the tub when George leaves. The water’s a little too hot, but it doesn’t bother him. Feels good on his aching muscles, actually. He goes lower and lower until the bubbles hit his chin. With his ears underwater, he can’t quite hear the storm outside.

He remembers, then – the fading yellow sky, lifeless bodies, face-down in the flood, mangled in chain link fences, a boy, younger than him, face swollen and unidentifiable, a father screaming, helpless in a way Alex had never seen a man, making him wonder about his own – did he know? Did he care? Would he come back?

Alex leaps out of the tub, water spilling over the ledge, splashing over the cold tiles and making a mess. It feels like there’s a block of concrete on his chest now – weighing him down, making it hard to inhale. He turns off all the lights in their suite, darkening the room, pulling the curtains over the windows. Yesterday, they could look out over the Atlantic Ocean. Tonight, though, it’s nothing but gray rain.

He crawls under the eggshell white duvet, still wet and naked, hoping he’ll just fall asleep before George comes back. His phone is still vibrating on the bedside table with messages from the communication’s director so he  holds down the power button, turning it off. He doesn’t have the energy for this, can’t get his mind in the right place to even begin to think of the most effective way to nip this in the bud. He’ll put his background on display if it means protecting what he and George have. Yeah, his story is fucking embarrassing, but it’s not political suicide.

His mind is still racing when George comes back, quiet once he realizes the lights are off. Alex rolls over, catches him in the hallway's glow – he’s wearing a fresh T-shirt and sweatpants, must’ve showered at the gym.

“Already out of the tub?” George asks, shutting the door behind him and making his way over to the bed, tugging his shirt off.

Alex shrugs a shoulder and pulls the duvet back, scooting over to make room, leaving a wet spot behind on the sheets. “The water got cold,” he says.

George cocks an eyebrow, knows he’s lying. “And you didn’t dry off,” he observes, crawling in next to him.

“Yeah,” Alex says, happy their room is dark so George doesn’t see the way he’s blushing. “Sorry. I’m just – ”

There’s a loud crack outside their window – maybe a palm tree falling, a dock uprooting, could be anything – and then that familiar sound, like an approaching train. It sends a chill down his spine and he can’t help it – he presses closer to George, burying his nose behind his ear.

“I spoke with the woman at the front desk,” George says. “There’s nothing to worry about. These windows are built for this.”

“Can we just put on some music or something?” Alex asks.

George reaches over him for the remote and Alex grabs his wrist.

“No news,” he says. “I don’t want to watch any storm coverage.”

George nods, then wraps an arm around him, tugging him close. “Alex, are you afraid?”

“No,” Alex says honestly. Storms don't scare him anymore - it's the memories they evoke. “What do we do about Clinton?”

George is silent for a moment. “I don’t want you to worry about him. We’ll deal with it tomorrow – keep you out of it as much as we can. Release a statement that shuts it down, but I don’t want you commenting or involved in any way. It’s a ridiculous rumor and everyone knows it."

"It's been a slow news week," Alex says.

"Very slow," George agrees. " And whatever they publish about you – you don’t need to be embarrassed."

Alex closes his eyes – doesn’t have the energy to tell George there’s no way he could possibly get it. His successes don’t negate the fact he grew up without the same privileges, the same support as everyone else in this political world he’s fallen into. He doesn’t have a name worth envying, a name that helps him get ahead. No. George means well, always has, but he’ll never understand what it's like to be proud of your accomplishments but still feel like you're on the outside looking in. 

The silence lingers between them for a minute, maybe two.

“You’re not yourself,” George finally says, soft. “You haven’t been since we landed in Miami. I need to know - if you don’t want to talk, it’s fine. But I need to know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

Alex swallows. “No. I'll be better once we get to Ohio. I just really hate Miami.”

George pulls back, gives him a puzzled look. “Why?”

Alex chews his bottom lip, wondering just how much he wants to disclose. He's always afraid of freaking George out - and George, though he hides it well and would never admit it, does get freaked out pretty damn easily. He still regrets telling him about the time he walked nearly two hours from the Columbia campus to his part-time gig at the Bronx Zoo - no money for his expired MetroCard or a bus, not if he wanted to eat dinner that night.    

“I lived here for three months before my mom was able to move us to New York,” Alex says, meeting George’s eyes, waiting for the realization to hit. “After Hurricane Isaac leveled our house.”

George closes his eyes, sighs. “Alex - I didn’t even think -”

“No,” Alex cuts him off, squeezing his bicep. “I’m not trying to, like, guilt-trip you or anything. We’ve talked about St. Croix once. Maybe twice. But yeah, when we left St. Croix we moved here and stayed with one of my mom’s old co-workers from the resort. She’d been transferred or something. It was - it wasn’t great. She had a shitty one bedroom apartment in a shitty neighborhood. The tenants all had bedbugs. One day the neighbor woman’s teenage son was gone and suddenly I wasn’t allowed to play outside anymore. You know, that kind of place. It was my first time in the States and all I could think was - ‘this is it?’ I was so homesick, so lonely, and my mom said New York would be better, _we’d_ be better off there, just give it three months. And you know the story after that. She didn’t even last a year.” He snorts. “Then it was off to foster care. So, yeah. Miami - not my favorite place. This is a five-star hotel and still, the first thing I did, was check the mattress.”

He rolls onto his back, away from George, suddenly feeling a little too exposed. George lets him - and Alex has to give him credit. He knows when to back off, when to let him unwind.

“There’s still so much about you I don’t know,” George muses, and it’s not accusatory, not cruel. “I’ve been with you for four years. I’d like to think this is something we can talk about.”

Alex’s stomach tightens. “It’s not like I’m withholding on purpose. Sometimes the Spark Notes version is just easier to digest. I mean, there are a lot of parts of my life I don't exactly enjoy reliving. I never expected this to happen."

“Hm?” George asks, quirking an eyebrow and turning to look at him.

“Us. I never expected us to happen. I figured I was just an easy lay for you, and that was fine because I liked it. And, I don’t know, I guess when you grow up the way I did you stop thinking you deserve the best parts of someone. You learn how to work with just scraps. When I realized I actually meant something to you - that was kind of a turning point, you know? Sometimes it’s still hard to wrap my mind around.”

George stares at him, heavy brow knitted, and Alex rolls back over, closes the space between them and tucks his body against his side.

“I know you love me and I know you care about me - God, I’ve had to repeat it enough times for John - but I’ll always have that ingrained in me, you know? Protect myself because no one else is going to do it for me.”

He feels George press a hand to the small of his back, pulling him closer.

“I hope I do a good enough job,” he says, soft eyes scanning Alex’s face. “I hope you don’t ever feel like I’m in this for the wrong reasons.”

“I never do,” Alex says - and he means it. “It’s more to do with me convincing myself I’m good enough for you.”

“Alex - ”

“I know that sounds cliche and lame,” he says laughing, even though it’s far from funny. George is still frowning. “I mean, once you grow up and become your own person it does get better - marginally, sure, but it does. It’s like, yeah, the scars are still there - I fought with myself over whether or not I deserved your love, but you were always there and you were real and you wouldn’t let me run away. You made it easy. But when I was a kid, the one thing I would always wonder was, ‘why didn’t he love us enough to stay?’ And when you’re 8, 9, 10 years old, you don’t understand yet that some people just aren’t made to be parents. When you’re a kid, you think you’re the one who fucked up. You're the one that's not worth loving. I had two things: I had my mom, and we had our home.And when Isaac destroyed everything, that was…I mean, I’d always thought, in the back of my mind, if he ever wanted to come back, he’d know where to find us. But not after that.” 

For a moment the only sound is the pounding rain, and Alex wonders if he’s even making sense or if his words are lost on George. He sees him squeeze his eyes shut in the dark, blink rapidly a couple times and Alex panics - he didn’t mean to upset him - but then George is moving, hovering over his frame in that way he likes, the way that makes him feel contained and safe. George stares down at him, one hand cupping the side of his jaw as his thumb traces circles on his cheek. Alex breathes in time with him, and the sounds of the storm just outside their window seem to fade.

“You’re more than what he did to you and your mother,” George says, and Alex has to hold his tongue, because it’s not like he hasn’t heard _that_ before. “I’ve already given you all the best parts of me - more than I’ve ever given anyone else. You’ve always been worth it. Worth the risk - worth everything. I wouldn’t put my entire career in jeopardy for someone I didn’t believe in.”

Alex smiles up at him, leaning into his touch as George starts to pet his hair. His brain feels a little foggy. He doesn't realize he has tears gathering in the corners of his eyes - not until George thumbs them away.

“Close your eyes,” he urges. “Go to sleep - I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Alex shakes his head, his eyes snapping open. “I’m OK. This is a good start. What else do you want to know?”

George hesitates. Then asks, “Your first foster family - what were they like?”

Alex closes his eyes, tries his best to remember faces he’s worked so hard to forget. They were kind, he knows that much - but they weren’t _his_.

“My foster mom wore this horrible rose perfume,” he says slowly, and he can’t help but smile at the memory. “It stunk up the entire house. There was, like, family tension because of this god damn perfume she loved so much. No one could talk her out of wearing it.”

George laughs in a way that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle and, yeah - Alex thinks this is a pretty great start.

 

* * *

**Also for the Quid Pro Quo verse:**

[Dry Spell](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6366067)

[Destinations](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6293752)

[Outgunned](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6381889)

[Pistachios and Popsicles](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6450361)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [a-schuyler](http://a-schuyler.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, if you'd like to say hi!


End file.
